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Human Odours


Hospital is one place where you witness human helplessness most visibly. I spent most of my time today in a hospital for a person who is a very close relative of mine. He is younger to me by a few years but looked more than a decade older than me because of his illness. Worse, he was utterly helpless. He had to depend on someone for every need of his.

 The moment came when I had to go and buy a diaper for him. At that time, when I was called by the nursing staff to get the diaper, I was sitting in the corridor outside the ‘care room’ where my relative was being given the medical treatment. The corridor had started to stink of human excreta. “Mummy, shit, shit.” A two-year-old child was telling its mummy for quite some time. Mummy was busy on her mobile phone. The whole corridor of the centrally air-conditioned hospital stank of human excreta that emanated from the child’s diaper. The mummy of that stench was still engaged with her mobile phone. I longed to tell her that the whole 21st century might probably stink because of her. Her little child, the promise of our future, was more aware than its mother about the stench it had released in its diaper.

I brought the diaper for my 56-year-old relative from the pharmacy of the hospital. The PA system of the hospital then announced in a sweet female voice, “Mrs & Mr So & So, Congratulations. You have been blessed with a baby girl.”  I was passing through the same corridor where the stench of human excreta was now replaced with a synthetic odour of jasmine. The mother of that child had put her mobile phone aside and sprayed some perfume around. The fact that she carried a perfume can in her handbag did impress me. We, human beings, do care about the odours we exude, it seems.

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanFebruary 19, 2023 at 3:24 AM

    Hari OM
    ...but did she change the child and make it comfortable??? I am worried for it! But yeah... hospitals are 'naked' places when it comes to viewing humanity. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pandian RamaiahFebruary 19, 2023 at 8:45 AM

    //The fact that she carried a perfume can in her handbag did impress me.// You helped me to smile today. Thank you :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Telugu GirlFebruary 21, 2023 at 12:28 PM

    Nice concept

    ReplyDelete

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